Kids, Family, Insanity…

Everyone poops – eventually!

by balancinggal on July 12, 2012

Cover of Everyone Poops (My Body Science)

There is a famous children’s book called Everyone Poops. I think the title is misleading, or at least not complete enough. It makes it sound like it’s no big deal. The truth of the matter is that in my household, POOP is not taken lightly, written in all CAPS and bolded, and to this day requires a parade and light show with my daughter’s every deuce.

For whatever reason, my gastro-challenged toddler had an amazingly difficult time with the entire subject. From the time she was very small, she would contort her body into the strangest positions (including one resembling child’s pose in yoga) to deal with this torturous body function. She made awful faces. She hid. We shoved prunes, fiber and everything else religiously down the kid but to no avail. I felt horrible for her.

As a consequence, her potty-training was a year-long nightmare that only recently started to ease. She refused to go. It hurt and she hated us. We tried ignoring the misses, we tried being nice, we offered praise and rewards for successful attempts. I yelled, I screamed, I threatened and cajoled, and I had tantrums (okay, mostly she had tantrums and I ran away screaming) but nothing worked. I felt embarrassed and frustrated; I was horribly anxious and certain I was failing as a mom. It was totally out of my control. My kid – who spoke at one – was going to graduate from high school in homemade pull-ups.

They say it’s really up to the child to decide when they are ready, and that they’ll figure it out on their own. And one day(after I had mostly given up) it just happened. It may have been the diet of almonds, raisins, apples and water, or maybe she finally got sick of it being such a big deal and decided to move on, but my daughter does a pretty good job these days. She did figure it out, and it did get better, completely outside of my personal efforts to make it happen.

That said, we are still called into the bathroom anytime she has a surprise for us in the potty. We still have to make a big deal, and it is still a point of enormous pride for her when she either goes without being told and when she scores a No. 2. It’s been a few months, but the first thing she reports gleefully when I come home from work is “No Accidents!”

If you are a mommy going through this, I have nothing but empathy for you. Know you will get through this, and it will end. Eventually, everyone poops – whether they want to or not. Your job is to do everything you can to keep your sanity while you wait. It’ll happen, I promise!